Date With A Spider
(The Lost Story of Edgar Allan Poe)
In April of 1826, while enrolled in his first and only year at the University of Virginia, Poe confided in his teacher, Professor Blaetterman, about his dire financial circumstances. Poe had been borrowing money from fellow students and friends, and had even tried to win more money through failed gambling.
Poe went on to say that he was now deeply in debt but wanted desperately to stay in school to pursue a formal education in literature. He told Blaetterman he wanted to be a writer and a poet, but that his guardian, John Allen, was pressuring him to have a military career instead, where he could at least earn a decent wage and establish some social prominence.
In one instance, a pair of heavy set gangster types showed up at John Allen’s door, looking for money. They were insisting that if Poe couldn’t pay off the gambling debts he owed them, then Poe’s unofficial adoptive father would have to, or else!
John Allen, furious over Poe’s gambling and excessive borrowing, told Poe in no uncertain terms that he would prefer it if he would leave the University of Virginia, and consider studying at West Point where he could receive military training and lots of discipline.
This put a lot of pressure on Poe, who became desperate to jump start his writing career so he might earn some money, and thereby escape both his debts, and the dominating wishes of John Allen. But up to that point, Poe’s writings had produced no interest from any potential publishers.
Blaetterman, sympathetic towards Poe’s predicament, introduced Poe to a literary agent for a prominent British magazine, who just happened to be visiting Virginia at the time. The British Magazine, which was launched as the “European Magazine, and London Review” in January 1782, was now merely entitled, by 1826, as “The European Magazine.”
The agent, willing to do a personal favour for his good friend, Blaetterman, informed Poe that they were thinking of publishing a horror short in their next issue and that he would be willing to look at any suitable short horror story Poe had laying around, provided he could have it within two days, which was the time of the agent’s departure back to England.
Poe was awash in brilliant ideas and half-finished manuscripts, but nothing readily completed at hand. But he excitedly agreed to both write and bring him a story within the two day period.
Poe, pressed for time, quickly wrote “Date With A Spider” all at one sitting, mindful of the two things the agent had told him. First, there were rumors of big changes coming to the magazine. They were trying to cater to all age groups, and thought a short horror tale might stimulate interest from the young teenage crowd. The story was to be written for kids ages 12 to 16. As such, Poe was under pressure to ‘dumb down’ his vocabulary while still bringing out a sense of the macabre, grotesqueness, and sensationalism. That being the case, Poe readily abandoned his usual verbosity, sense of grandeur, and gratuitous literary finesse.
Secondly, the story was to be for a British audience, and so the agent expressed the magazine’s need for the story to at least appear to have British characters and at least five or so British expressions. This explains Poe’s use of such British slang as “blimey,” and “collywobbles,” words Poe no doubt learned in the five years he had spent in Britain, from 1815 to 1820.
When Poe did hand in the story to the agent, in April of 1826, Poe received an astonishing twenty dollars for his trouble, which at the time was no small sum. Not only was the agent pleased with Poe’s work, but it enabled the agent to cement his friendship with his dear friend, Professor Blaetterman.
After an approximate three week journey back over the Atlantic, the agent enthusiastically submitted Poe’s torrid tale to the editor. However, as luck, or rather bad luck would have it, the story was never published by European Magazine. Although accepted by the magazine’s grateful editor, and slated to be published in the fall of 1826, the final magazine produced by the publisher was June of 1826. From here on in, the European Magazine was absorbed into the “Monthly Magazine.” Ironically, the new combined ‘Monthly Magazine’ felt the story, although suspenseful and scary, lacked academic polish.
Ironically, the new amalgamated mag no longer wanted a story for children aged 12 to 16. They now wanted something for the adult crowd, particularly university grads.
Had Poe simply of written it in his usual verbose style, it undoubtedly would have been published. Howbeit, as already stated, the agent had coerced him into strongly suppressing his sophisticated prose.
The end result was that a sulking agent, miffed over having not been reimbursed the twenty he had given to Poe, felt pressured to do something with Poe’s submission, hopeful that publishing it somewhere might give Poe some recognition.
The agent submitted the story for free to an upstart local London horror magazine, rumored to have been called, “Witches and Warlocks.” (It is not certain if this is the true name of the short lived mag.)
The story, “Date With a Spider,” was published in that magazine in October of 1826. The magazine failed to receive any money producing ads, and instead slid into bankruptcy, after only one month of operating. Then it merely permanently folded, almost as soon as it had begun.
It is thought that no more than fifty copies of the failed mag were ever sold. And of those, no copies are known to have survived today.
“Date With a Spider” is considered, by the few that were able to have read it, to be one of the scariest stories they have ever read. And yet, Poe never thought enough of the story to rewrite it in his usual style, and have it officially published along with his other works. One assumes that since it was only published by the bankrupt upstart, and never published by the much more successful major magazine, that Poe felt it a lost cause, and focused on far more polished works.
But there is, fortunately, a remaining copy of “Date With a Spider,” in its original form.
This original story is the long lost story by Edgar Allan Poe, written at just one sitting, for the young teen crowd, a departure from his usual stylistic prose, and long before he had any recognition or prominence.
The story is available for free, upon request...