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the Magazine than by any comments upon its contents.” And yet his philosophy was not entirely mercenary. There could be artistry in such work, after all: he pointedly noted that some of Britain’s finest writers were behind the sensational tales in Blackwood’s . What was more, when White offered to pay Poe to praise the Messenger in other publications, he tactfully refused. He was a writer, in short, who couldn’t be bought and who couldn’t be shamed.
    White was impressed, and in August 1835 Poe landed his first steady literary job. Though the publisher carefully skirted around an exact job title—Edgar thought himself an editor, while Thomas was not so sure—he made the young writer his right-hand man. Poe served as his personal secretary on correspondence, wrangled articles from contributors, and poundedout column after column of reviews, commentaries, and other editorial stuffing for the Messenger .
    Inevitably, Poe’s own writing suffered. “Having no time upon my hands, from my editorial duties, I can write nothing worth reading,” he admitted to one correspondent. But the professional experience he was gaining was priceless, and his own writing had not been entirely rewarding lately anyway; just before coming onboard the Messenger ’s staff, the magazine had run his comical hoax “Hans Pfaall”—the purported account of how a Dutch bellows mender escaped his creditors by flying a fantastical new hot-air balloon all the way to the moon. It was inventive, but also too absurd to take seriously. Poe was miffed when, just two months later, a far more elaborate and focused lunar hoax was perpetrated by Richard Adams Locke of the New York Sun .
    “I am convinced that the idea was stolen from myself,” Poe snapped.
    It was his first fling in a long, unfortunate love affair with plagiarism accusations; though this time, at least, Poe had the sense to quickly let it drop. Locke’s immensely successful account of telescope sightings of lunar man-bats and bipedal beavers cavorting around giant sapphire pyramids briefly had the Sun ’s circulation exceeding that of the Times of London; eventually, even Poe admitted that Locke’s work was so ingenious that “not one person in ten” suspected a fraud.
    Moving to Richmond, though, brought Poe no end of more earthly concerns. Leaving his aunt Maria and cousin Virginia behind in Baltimore made Poe moderately successful—and instantly regretful. Writing to Kennedy, he admitted that even his unprecedented salary of $520 a year was no solace: “I am suffering under a depression . . . I am miserable in spite of the great improvements in my circumstances.” White saw his assistant’s melancholy dissolving into drinking; writing in alarm toa friend, he noted Poe “was unfortunately rather dissipated. . . . I should not be at all astonished to hear that he has been guilty of suicide.” He briefly fired Poe altogether—and then, after his magazine instantly ground to a halt, hired him back.
    “No man is safe who drinks before breakfast!” White admonished his wayward assistant. “No man can do so, and attend to business properly.”
    Poe’s family history did not bode well, as both his birth father and brother had been alcoholics. Edgar drank when he was anxious or distressed, and like his father, he was prone to then turning moody and argumentative. “Mr. Poe was a fine gentleman when he was sober . . .” an office boy at the Messenger recalled. “But when he was drinking he was about one of the most disagreeable men I have ever met.” While the rhetoric of the day cast drinking as a moral failure, Edgar rarely did; when he acknowledged it at all, it was as his “illness.” But it was an illness that perhaps he could recover from—and upon Edgar’s return to work, his boss found him newly sober, and his nerves calmed by an assurance from his aunt and cousin that they’d move to Richmond.
    Poe now had plenty of catching up to do at the Messenger