Speaker 1: Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shonda land Audio in
Speaker 1: partnership with I Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to the
Speaker 1: second season of Criminalia. This season, we're exploring the lives
Speaker 1: and motivations of some of the most notorious stalkers throughout history.
Speaker 1: I'm Maria, I'm Holly Fry, And as we did in
Speaker 1: the first season, we planned a look at some of
Speaker 1: history's transgressions to get a better understanding of what really
Speaker 1: went down, and in doing so, we're hoping that we'll
Speaker 1: get some perspective on whether any of these alleged perpetrators
Speaker 1: emerge instead as sympathetic characters, and also how these crimes
Speaker 1: look through today's eyes, because, as they say, a little
Speaker 1: distance goes a long way. So our first season was
Speaker 1: all about women poisoners, and frankly it was all about
Speaker 1: ours neck too. But now in season two we'll see
Speaker 1: far less arsenic, but we will see a lot more stalkers.
Speaker 1: Today we're going to talk about Rufus Griswold, who was
Speaker 1: the arch nemesis of Edgar Allan Poe. And while the
Speaker 1: cause of post death is a mystery still today, we
Speaker 1: do know one thing, actually we know two things. One
Speaker 1: Griswold did not kill him too. Everything we thought we
Speaker 1: knew about Poe is actually really wrong and it's Grizzwald's doing.
Speaker 1: But we're here to talk about the man Griswold was not,
Speaker 1: to solve the mystery of post death. First, we need
Speaker 1: to lay a little groundwork and talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about stalking and stalkers. Right, So, stalking by definition is simple, Like,
Speaker 1: the definition just says it is the unwanted pursuit of
Speaker 1: another person. That's it. That's all. So it's a pretty
Speaker 1: wide net that could involve things like following someone or
Speaker 1: unexpectedly appearing at a person's home or a place of employment,
Speaker 1: or making harassing phone calls, leaving written messages or objects,
Speaker 1: or vandalizing a person's property. We've seen a lot of
Speaker 1: this in the modern era, little different in the history,
Speaker 1: not all the same technology available, and it could involve
Speaker 1: a little bit or a few of these things and
Speaker 1: still be defined as stalking. But it is also a crime, right,
Speaker 1: whether it's one or six, still a crime. So who
Speaker 1: becomes a stalker? You might wonder, Well, we wondered. So
Speaker 1: the demographics related to stalkers are actually quite diverse and
Speaker 1: as you're going to see this season. Virtually anyone can
Speaker 1: become a stalker. They come from all walks of life
Speaker 1: and socioeconomic backgrounds. But despite the diversity, research shows that
Speaker 1: there are actually some common characteristics that they have. In
Speaker 1: the United States, according to the FBI, as many as
Speaker 1: eight seven percent of stalkers are male and are white.
Speaker 1: Half fall between the ages of eighteen and thirty five.
Speaker 1: Most stalkers, again, according to the FBI, are of above
Speaker 1: average and tell agents, and most earn above average incomes.
Speaker 1: But now let's take a look at the victims. So
Speaker 1: just as anyone could become a stalker, anyone could become
Speaker 1: a victim. Of all stalking victims, about three quarters, according
Speaker 1: to the FBI, again are women, and they are between
Speaker 1: the ages of eighteen and thirty nine, and eighty three
Speaker 1: percent of them are white. Also, a little more than
Speaker 1: half of them are married. And indeed, as Maria said,
Speaker 1: anyone can become a stalker. Take Rufus Wilmot Griswold for example.
Speaker 1: Griswold was by all accounts successful. He was a journalist,
Speaker 1: a literary critic, an anthologist, and an editor. That is
Speaker 1: a really impressive resume, and it looks really good on paper,
Speaker 1: but what he's best known for is his character assassination
Speaker 1: of Edgar Ellan Poe. His hatred was palpable during the
Speaker 1: years of rivalry between the two authors, and that was
Speaker 1: a rivalry that didn't end until Griswold's death, which was
Speaker 1: well after Poe was long So. Griswald was born on
Speaker 1: February eighteen fifteen in Vermont, in a really small town
Speaker 1: outside of Rutland, and he was the twelfth of fourteen children.
Speaker 1: His father was a farmer and a shoemaker, and he
Speaker 1: raised his family strict Calvinist. And it was said that
Speaker 1: Griswald was intelligent looking. He had a high, broad forehead
Speaker 1: and large gray eyes, a sharp nose, and an expression
Speaker 1: of smug defiance, which when I read that I thought
Speaker 1: was fantastic because as you learn a little bit more
Speaker 1: about him, you're going to envision that what he looked
Speaker 1: like as a kid manifested his entire life. Um it's
Speaker 1: also been sad quote that he has a glib tongue,
Speaker 1: and I think that did carry with him his entire life.
Speaker 1: So he left home when he was fifteen, and he
Speaker 1: called himself and we quote here again a solitary soul,
Speaker 1: wandering through the world, a homeless joy, this outcast. My god,
Speaker 1: he was like an eighteen thirties emo kid. He totally
Speaker 1: wast man. And although Griswold would like people to believe
Speaker 1: that he spent his teenage years voyaging the world, modern
Speaker 1: biographers disagree with that claim because actually, at fift TV
Speaker 1: was not out traveling the world by himself. He was
Speaker 1: in Troy, New York, attending the Rensseller School that is
Speaker 1: now Rensseller Polytechnic Institute. And this was all thanks to
Speaker 1: his brother, who was a well known businessman in that town.
Speaker 1: Griswold was, however, kicked out of the school shortly after
Speaker 1: he started his studies there because apparently he had a
Speaker 1: little problem with playing pranks. So we went to live
Speaker 1: with his brother who was in Troy, and it said
Speaker 1: that during that time Griswold became acquainted with the writer
Speaker 1: George G. Foster, who's famous for writing the book New
Speaker 1: York by Gaslights. He moved of Troy and moved in
Speaker 1: with Foster, who lived in Albany, New York. Now, if
Speaker 1: you're unfamiliar with New York state, Albany is about eight
Speaker 1: miles away from Troy World Traveler. He bridging the state.
Speaker 1: While he was in his twenties, though, Griswold moved to Syracuse,
Speaker 1: New York again not so far afield, and he started
Speaker 1: a newspaper there called The Porcupine, which is terribly charming
Speaker 1: his names go, it is, except for when you learn
Speaker 1: what he did with it, and you're right. So this
Speaker 1: publication was later remembered as a spiteful critique that targeted locals,
Speaker 1: and mostly it was all written by Griswold under the
Speaker 1: pseudonym Toby Trinculo. Basically, it was just his next door
Speaker 1: that he had a printing press for. Yes, I also
Speaker 1: laughed because I know what comes ahead, and I apologized
Speaker 1: for that. But this won't be the first time that
Speaker 1: we see Griswold using a pseudonym. But I really have
Speaker 1: a love hate relationship that he uses now and writes
Speaker 1: an entire newspaper on one. So anyway, he continued working
Speaker 1: as a journalist after Syracuse and Uh he was journalist
Speaker 1: and a critic in Philadelphia, New York City, and a
Speaker 1: few other northern cities at the time when he began
Speaker 1: editing for the Chautauqua Wig that officially established him as
Speaker 1: an editor, and he held editorships of both The Western
Speaker 1: Democrat and the Literary Inquirer in and then in eighteen
Speaker 1: thirty six he edited an Olian Advocate. Much of his
Speaker 1: work at this time was again still in Western New York.
Speaker 1: So I'm actually going to change the topic quite a
Speaker 1: ways right now. Let's talk about Griswold's marriages for just
Speaker 1: a minute. And I bring this up because Griswold met
Speaker 1: his wife right before he began working at the Olian Advocate.
Speaker 1: The relationship he had with her is really interesting because
Speaker 1: it's unlike any other we see him have throughout his
Speaker 1: entire life. Watching it develop and watching them as a
Speaker 1: couple helps us see the complexity of Griswold and not
Speaker 1: just his hot streak. He was actually married three times
Speaker 1: during his life. Shortly after marrying his first wife, Caroline,
Speaker 1: Griswold actually became a reverend at her encouragement. Caroline unfortunately
Speaker 1: died young while she was giving birth to their third child,
Speaker 1: the son that also died during childbirth, and they had
Speaker 1: two daughters, and all accounts suggest that Griswold was deeply
Speaker 1: in love with Caroline from the moment he met her.
Speaker 1: As One story goes he threw himself on her grave
Speaker 1: during her funeral, and another tells about how a month
Speaker 1: after she died, he actually snuck into the crypt where
Speaker 1: she was buried, just so he could spend the night
Speaker 1: near her. Sorry, my my pause was just because I
Speaker 1: don't know if I want someone to sneak into my
Speaker 1: crypt or not. I've I'm torn on that. So, while
Speaker 1: his marriage to Caroline made him feel saved, he has
Speaker 1: said his other marriages were not so deep. He eventually remarried,
Speaker 1: as we said, to a woman named Charlotte Myers, who
Speaker 1: was many years his senior. But when Griswold became interested
Speaker 1: not in his wife but in the poetus Alice Carr
Speaker 1: and asked for a divorce, Charlotte refused him. This turned
Speaker 1: into quite an ongoing conflict, and that marriage ultimately ended
Speaker 1: in a public and very controversial divorce. Griswold's third wife,
Speaker 1: Harriet Macrillis, left him after the previous divorce was almost repealed.
Speaker 1: Basically after Caroline, he never got it right again, No,
Speaker 1: he didn't, you know, he never should have tried. He
Speaker 1: should have just stuck with being a widower. Um. But
Speaker 1: enough now, though about Griswold marriages. We're going to take
Speaker 1: a quick sponsor break, and when we returned, we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about how and when Griswold met Edgar Allan Poe.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Criminalia. Now we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: how Poe and Griswold met. So Rufus, Griswold and Edgar
Speaker 1: Allan Poe met right around eighteen forty, and that's when
Speaker 1: Griswold was planning a poetry anthology. So at this time
Speaker 1: in his career, Poe was working as a literary critic
Speaker 1: and he was a budding poet. He was interested in
Speaker 1: Griswold and the work that Griswold was doing, and the
Speaker 1: two of them met and ended up talking for hours. Poe,
Speaker 1: presumably trying to be helpful, provided self or works of
Speaker 1: his own for the anthology, and he also recommended poets
Speaker 1: for Grizzold to consider, but Griswold ultimately ignored all of
Speaker 1: post suggestions, although he did include some of Poe's works.
Speaker 1: Once that book was published, Griswold paid Poe to write
Speaker 1: a review of the anthology for the Boston Miscellany. A
Speaker 1: little awkward, right, there's some journalistic standards to be examined.
Speaker 1: They're not so cool. Moving on, like, yeah, oh did
Speaker 1: take that job. And he wrote what was mostly a
Speaker 1: positive review except oh, yes, there is an exception. There's
Speaker 1: always He criticized some of the poets that had been selected,
Speaker 1: possibly as many as twenty four, including Longfellow, who po
Speaker 1: accused of plagiarizing Alfred Lord Tennyson. I mean, who among
Speaker 1: us hasn't done a little light Lord Tennys in plagiarism
Speaker 1: here time to time comes off. Po stated that many
Speaker 1: of the poets who were selected were and we're quoting
Speaker 1: him here to mediocre to entitle them to particular notice
Speaker 1: o whammo. So Poe was known to be a really
Speaker 1: harsh literary critic. No way was a lamb. Everybody's doing
Speaker 1: their best. He wrote, I love your high kup. So
Speaker 1: basically when he reviewed your poem, your book, your anthology,
Speaker 1: whatever it was, his reviews generally stung, and he offended
Speaker 1: many of his peers and his colleagues with his writing.
Speaker 1: Um But among the most offended was Rufus Griswald, who
Speaker 1: at the time was a rival editor, anthologist, and two
Speaker 1: po at least a failed poet. Griswald had once said
Speaker 1: about po that quote, the tales of Mr Poe are
Speaker 1: peculiar and impressive. He has a great deal of imagination
Speaker 1: and fancy, and his mind is in the highest degree analytical.
Speaker 1: The reader of Mr Poe's tales is compelled, almost at
Speaker 1: the outset, to surrender his mind to the author's control.
Speaker 1: Now that should have been the bio, and he should
Speaker 1: have done wrote the end, right, I mean, that's beautiful, praise,
Speaker 1: that's that's lovely. But um times change. So after pose
Speaker 1: assessment of the anthology, Griswold believed that Poe thought too
Speaker 1: much of himself and he was really displeased by the review.
Speaker 1: So this is the moment that sparked a rivalry that
Speaker 1: lasted beyond pose death and might be one of the
Speaker 1: longest standing smear campaigns of literary history. At the end
Speaker 1: of the day, experts on this rivalry put it pretty simply.
Speaker 1: Griswold was the kind of person who made enemies everywhere
Speaker 1: he went, and he and Poe may have just been
Speaker 1: a pair that provoked and infuriated each other. It happens, right,
Speaker 1: Sometimes people just rubbed you the wrong way. But wow,
Speaker 1: this went much further than that. So a nightmare to
Speaker 1: many who knew him, both socially and or professionally. Griswold
Speaker 1: was really actually pretty good at what he did, and
Speaker 1: he had built a strong literary reputation when his eighteen
Speaker 1: forty two collection called The Poets and Poetry of America
Speaker 1: was released. In fact, Griswold and Poe had both worked
Speaker 1: on a publication called Graham's Magazine, but to pose disappointment
Speaker 1: when Griswold succeeded him as assistant editor. Griswold also took
Speaker 1: home a bigger paycheck, and Poe may have felt short changed,
Speaker 1: but Griswald had come to utterly low's Poe because Poe
Speaker 1: had criticized Griswold's poetry collections. How dare he he was
Speaker 1: obsessed with this bad review. The owner of Graham's Magazine
Speaker 1: later commented that Poe quote gave Mr Griswold some raps
Speaker 1: over the knuckles, a force sufficient to be remembered. I
Speaker 1: suppose that is a way to say it. Yes, I
Speaker 1: mean again, this is the kid who thinks he left
Speaker 1: home and paints himself as like this lonely, penniless joy
Speaker 1: live of the world, and then someone's like, you're kind
Speaker 1: of a crap poet like, He's like, fine, then I'll
Speaker 1: just write under pseudonym as you'll never know to his
Speaker 1: entire identity was undermined by this thing. So really, at
Speaker 1: this point in their story, this is when things went
Speaker 1: kind of truly weird. Alright. So Poe died on October seven,
Speaker 1: forty nine, and the po Griswald situation moved beyond rivalry
Speaker 1: between two editors. Um Speculations about the cause of post
Speaker 1: death abound even today. They ranged from alcohol poisoning to
Speaker 1: an undiagnosed illness such as maybe tuberculosis, and they even
Speaker 1: speculated that it could have been rabies, which actually at
Speaker 1: that time wouldn't have been a weird thing like today.
Speaker 1: But what we do know is that he was found
Speaker 1: lying on a street in Baltimore, incoherent and dressed in
Speaker 1: someone else's clothing. He was admitted to the Washington College Hospital,
Speaker 1: where he spent last days, and reportedly while there he
Speaker 1: kept repeating the name Reynolds. A local newspaper reported his
Speaker 1: cause of death as congestion of the brain, and today
Speaker 1: we would call that frenitis or swelling of the brain,
Speaker 1: but it was at the time often used as a
Speaker 1: euphemism for alcohol poisoning. The circumstances surrounding pose untimely death
Speaker 1: remain one of the great mysteries about the author even today,
Speaker 1: and it has long fueled the perception that he lived
Speaker 1: a life of debauchery. With Pose death, Griswold saw an opportunity,
Speaker 1: and he went on and on to defame po for
Speaker 1: many years. We are going to take a break, and
Speaker 1: then when we come back, we will talk about how
Speaker 1: and when Griswold began this campaign of defamation. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to Criminalia. So it all started with the obituary. That
Speaker 1: character assassination we mentioned before the break began immediately upon
Speaker 1: Poe's death. Griswald penned pose obituary for the New York
Speaker 1: Daily Tribune, which actually was so libelous, and he knew
Speaker 1: that that he wrote it under the pseudonym Ludwig More pseudonyms.
Speaker 1: Come on, rufus, stand up for your own words. So
Speaker 1: that obituary began. I'm going to quote it. Edgar Allan
Speaker 1: Poe is dead. He died in Baltimore the day before yesterday.
Speaker 1: This announcement will startle many, but few will be grieved
Speaker 1: by it. He went on that Poe was morally bankrupt
Speaker 1: and a drunken womanizer, and today we know that none
Speaker 1: of that is actually true. In this obituary, along with
Speaker 1: any information about Poe that came from Griswold Old, we're
Speaker 1: all an attempt at revenge for some of the offensive
Speaker 1: and provoking things that Poe had written about Griswold and
Speaker 1: his work over the years. But there's a beautiful sort
Speaker 1: of irony here, which is that the attacks that Griswold mounted,
Speaker 1: which he intended to turn people off of reading Pose works,
Speaker 1: actually had the opposite effects. People became very fascinated and
Speaker 1: started reading Poe even more after his death than when
Speaker 1: he was alive. I love it. The obituary was just
Speaker 1: at the beginning. With Po's death, Griswold became the well
Speaker 1: spring of pretty much all the misinformation about pose life
Speaker 1: from the eight hundred still today. And next, in his
Speaker 1: toxic campaign, he decided that he would write Pose memoirs.
Speaker 1: I always think about this in the selfish lens, and
Speaker 1: go who that hates me would write my And how
Speaker 1: badly would that go? Well? Would it sound like exactly?
Speaker 1: And it said that Poe had appointed his now literary rival,
Speaker 1: Griz Wald to be his literary executor. And that sounds weird, correct,
Speaker 1: but it also might have happened. Uh. It often seems
Speaker 1: when you read about their story that Griswold was really
Speaker 1: fuming all the time and Poe was kind of like,
Speaker 1: you're crabby, Like he didn't have the same iron return
Speaker 1: at all. I feel the same way. I feel like
Speaker 1: for Poe, he kind of like came and went out
Speaker 1: of the rivalry, and like Griswold was just in it
Speaker 1: all the time. Yes, because he was obsessed. Yes, So,
Speaker 1: like we said, this may have actually happened, that Poe
Speaker 1: chose Griswold to be his literary executor. It is actually
Speaker 1: likely that one of the following two things happened. So
Speaker 1: some historians think that yes, Poe did name Griswold to
Speaker 1: be his literary executor, probably during a time when the
Speaker 1: two were in a more civil relationship, um, which you know, possible. However,
Speaker 1: others believe it was more likely this scenario. Griswold probably
Speaker 1: convinced Poe's mother in law, a woman named Maria Clem
Speaker 1: after post death to sign away the rights to the
Speaker 1: author's works, promising her profits from the sales of the memoir,
Speaker 1: but Maria was never actually paid well. She was paid,
Speaker 1: but not as she expected to be. She received six
Speaker 1: sets of the two volumes of the memoir with a
Speaker 1: card that said that she could sell them and that
Speaker 1: would be her profits. What a peach it's come on now.
Speaker 1: With all of post literary papers, Griswold was able to
Speaker 1: take real events in post life and twist them to
Speaker 1: fit the character of Poe that he was creating. And
Speaker 1: he ended up creating what you've probably heard of before,
Speaker 1: kind of a mad genius version of po One where
Speaker 1: he became this poor, wandering madman with alcohol and opioid
Speaker 1: problems who talked to himself on the streets. And Griswold
Speaker 1: backed up his claims about Poe with quote unquote evidence,
Speaker 1: although most of that so called evidence has also been
Speaker 1: completely debunked. I would love to see that evidence. So
Speaker 1: when gris Wald edited and published an inaccurate collection of
Speaker 1: Poe's writings, in which he included a biographical piece entitled
Speaker 1: Memoir of the Author, as you men guess, it did
Speaker 1: not paint a good picture of Poe. Griswold made false
Speaker 1: claims about pose character, and it was this piece that
Speaker 1: would go on to seal the negative reputation. Griswold was
Speaker 1: trying to develop a Poe within the community, and it
Speaker 1: was starting to become how people thought of Poe. In
Speaker 1: the biography that Griswold wrote of Edgar Allan Poe, he
Speaker 1: also portrayed Poe is basically a conniving jerk who had
Speaker 1: conned a woman out of money and who spent most
Speaker 1: of his time drunk. But then Griswold actually took things
Speaker 1: to a new level. He made up passages and quotes
Speaker 1: from Pope posthumously. They were all quotes that gave high
Speaker 1: praise to Rufus. Griswald surprised, and they were. They were
Speaker 1: all attributed to Poe, so he claimed after the man's death,
Speaker 1: and in fact he was very complimentary of him. Right,
Speaker 1: he's a terrible person, but he loved me. Poe at
Speaker 1: this point was becoming a legend in the community. But
Speaker 1: his life still to this day is widely mischaracterized and
Speaker 1: his character has been distorted this whole time because of
Speaker 1: this one book. And while Poe was an obsessive rivalry
Speaker 1: for Griswald, that was not the only person that Rufus
Speaker 1: had some controversy with. You don't say he had a
Speaker 1: personality type. There were a lot of people that he
Speaker 1: had conflict with, but there are two that came up
Speaker 1: in the research that are really worth noting. Reverend Jule
Speaker 1: Healey and Griswald were working on books about George Washington
Speaker 1: at the same time, and through their interactions, he was
Speaker 1: angry and swore revenge. We don't know exactly what went down,
Speaker 1: but this is Grizzwald. He began calling grizz Wald and
Speaker 1: we quote such a liar that even his friends replied
Speaker 1: to his statements with the query, is that a grizz
Speaker 1: Wald or a fact? Which I would really like to
Speaker 1: make a comeback, Holly, I think we can do it
Speaker 1: day to day life. I'll have to explain it the
Speaker 1: first few times and then people will start to get it. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: unlike Griswold's life longs talking of po this rivalry lasted
Speaker 1: only about a month, and unfortunately no one today says
Speaker 1: is that a griz Wald or is it a fact? Anyway?
Speaker 1: So nothing about this rival We're really stuck. It's kind
Speaker 1: of another like twist of the dagger that even an
Speaker 1: insult about him did not persist his story. Glee like
Speaker 1: You're not less in anyway, dude, right, I can't even stick.
Speaker 1: And Heatley was not the first person who butted heads
Speaker 1: with Griswold that year. A young woman named Elizabeth Ellett,
Speaker 1: who was well known among the high circles of literary society,
Speaker 1: proposed to Griswold that she could write a book about
Speaker 1: American revolutionary women, and he really liked the idea, so
Speaker 1: he agreed, and he also agreed that she can have
Speaker 1: access to his private library. But she committed the terrible,
Speaker 1: terrible faux pa of never thanking him for letting her
Speaker 1: have that research access. Bless her soul. This bruised Griswold zego,
Speaker 1: and he found the oversight completely insulting, and Elizabeth Ellett
Speaker 1: essentially became dead to him at that point. Rufus just can't.
Speaker 1: Rufus just can't. It's gonna be my reaction to anything
Speaker 1: that I don't want to deal with. I'm sorry, Rufus
Speaker 1: just can't. Good So okay. During the years between Poe's
Speaker 1: death and his own, gris Wald published numerous poems and anthologies,
Speaker 1: as well as sermons and editorial pieces, and none of
Speaker 1: them had anything to do with Poe. Among His most
Speaker 1: notable works are the Poets and Poetry of America, which
Speaker 1: we talked about earlier, the Poets and Poetry of England,
Speaker 1: and a poem that was called Five Days, which was
Speaker 1: written for his first wife Caroline. After her death, Griswold
Speaker 1: continued to work on anthologies right up until his death
Speaker 1: by tuberculosis on August seven. And when Griswold died, there
Speaker 1: are stories that there was a portrait of Poe hanging
Speaker 1: on the wall in his hallway. This was the only
Speaker 1: portrait that Poever sat for, and Griswold had stolen it. Listen,
Speaker 1: you might maybe use the word con as a more
Speaker 1: appropriate discussion, but basically he had gotten met somehow from Poe,
Speaker 1: his mother in law, the same exact woman who he
Speaker 1: had kind of conned into signing away the rights to
Speaker 1: pose works. Yeah, she should stop talking to him, But
Speaker 1: I love the idea that it was a portrait on
Speaker 1: the wall in the hallway. Um, he hated him so much,
Speaker 1: he looked at him every single day. So we have Griswold,
Speaker 1: and he has died, And just a few years after
Speaker 1: his death, a woman named Sarah Helen Whitman, posed former fiance,
Speaker 1: published her own biography of Poe. Several other authors, editors,
Speaker 1: and poets followed with their own written defensive po and
Speaker 1: these versions, most of them, at least, if not all
Speaker 1: of them, portrayed Po in a much better light than
Speaker 1: Griswold ever had, And while they were unable to set
Speaker 1: the record straight within the community, they did finally almost
Speaker 1: successfully dismissed the popular idea that Poe was an opium addict. However,
Speaker 1: as time passed, it was Griswold's Memoir of an Author
Speaker 1: that he had written ages ago, when Poe had first died,
Speaker 1: that became accepted as a true account of post life.
Speaker 1: In fact, it was actually really the only established biography
Speaker 1: of Poe for something like twenty five years, and today
Speaker 1: the largest collection of Griswold's work now belongs to a
Speaker 1: museum dedicated to his enemy. I love that so much.
Speaker 1: I love that his portrait is hanging up in you know,
Speaker 1: his historical society, and it has nothing to do with him. Yes,
Speaker 1: And while post legend, of course lives on today, it's huge.
Speaker 1: Griswold is basically just remembered as Po's first biographer and
Speaker 1: the man who smeared him after his death now there
Speaker 1: was a story that came up that we talked about
Speaker 1: during the research that you loved, and there wasn't quite
Speaker 1: a correct place to put it here, but I wanted
Speaker 1: to make sure that you tell it because it's so
Speaker 1: incredibly charming. It is so charming, and I think that
Speaker 1: it is such a good description of who Poe actually was.
Speaker 1: I just fell in love with it. So it was
Speaker 1: a time after The Raven. The poem came out, and
Speaker 1: as a literary critic you're not recognized on the street,
Speaker 1: but as a poet um at that time you were.
Speaker 1: And so The Raven became very popular and so popular
Speaker 1: that children knew who po was and they would follow
Speaker 1: him around on the streets calling at him, which I
Speaker 1: think is fantastic one, but two, he would turn around
Speaker 1: and sort of raise his hands up in the air
Speaker 1: and go never more. And the kids would just run
Speaker 1: off like screaming and laughing and having a really good
Speaker 1: time with Edgar Allan Poe, which if you were Griswold,
Speaker 1: those words don't actually make sense. It probably even and
Speaker 1: sensed him that children liked to. I know he was like,
Speaker 1: even the children are calling him no one. I just
Speaker 1: love that. I mean everything that I've learned about power
Speaker 1: that hasn't had Griswold's touch to it just suggests he
Speaker 1: was such a charming man. It didn't fit in the script,
Speaker 1: and I appreciate you giving me the time to share.
Speaker 1: It's slightly selfish because I love it, Girl and Poe,
Speaker 1: I like rufus. Griswold have his portrait in my home,
Speaker 1: although not so I can spear at it because I
Speaker 1: love him. So we um instead of what you're poisoned
Speaker 1: this season have a little bit different name. So Holly
Speaker 1: is going to kick that off. Yeah, I mean we
Speaker 1: still are going to have cocktails. Don't don't mistake my
Speaker 1: language for no cocktails just mean we're going to call
Speaker 1: him something out And this one you have to excuse
Speaker 1: because we're taking a little bit of linguistic license. We
Speaker 1: are calling these the chaser. Normally, a chaser is actually
Speaker 1: non alcoholic. It's what you have after you have a shot,
Speaker 1: where you then drink down like a soda or a
Speaker 1: water or something so that it helps balance that out
Speaker 1: in your system and you don't become a train wrean
Speaker 1: too quickly. But we're calling them chasers because we're talking
Speaker 1: about stalkers, and they will, in fact usually have alcohol.
Speaker 1: I think it's a brilliant name. And thinking about these
Speaker 1: two and Rufus Griswold in particular, I wanted to make
Speaker 1: a dark drink, and I wanted to make something that
Speaker 1: was just interesting in a little bit outside of where
Speaker 1: I would normally land, and I created something called the
Speaker 1: Bitter Rival. Uh So it starts with four ounces of
Speaker 1: cold coffee, two ounces of rum. I used a spice rum,
Speaker 1: and ounce of simple syrup. You can use a flavored one.
Speaker 1: I used a little bit of my leftover honey syrup
Speaker 1: from when we did the bees Knees at the end
Speaker 1: of season. One, three quarters of an ounce of lemon juice,
Speaker 1: and then two to three shakes of angist a bitters.
Speaker 1: The lemon juice is interesting, gives it a little bit
Speaker 1: of bite, which is what we want, right. We don't
Speaker 1: want this to be an overly sweet and cloying thing.
Speaker 1: We must definitely do not with these men, right, because
Speaker 1: I want everything to be overly sweet and cloying. But yeah,
Speaker 1: you can do other bidders if you prefer them. I
Speaker 1: had angister on hand. Mix that all up, give it
Speaker 1: a shake and a shaker if you wish pour it
Speaker 1: into your glass, and there you have a bitter rival.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because it doesn't have as much body as
Speaker 1: I anticipated, and it's not as bity as I thought.
Speaker 1: And if you really dislike bitey, you can add a
Speaker 1: little more simple syrup. If you would prefer it to
Speaker 1: be a little more bitter, you can drop that down
Speaker 1: to like a three quarters of an ounce. But that
Speaker 1: is my my odes to Rufus Grispell, the bitter Rival.
Speaker 1: I'd like to think that post the kind of guy
Speaker 1: who would have had a lot of coffee. One would
Speaker 1: hope it's a coffee time. And it's also a good
Speaker 1: way if you're like me and you make like a
Speaker 1: pot of coffee and sometimes you end up with like
Speaker 1: a cold bit at the end that you don't really
Speaker 1: want to drink. Put that in a jar or a
Speaker 1: container and toss it in your fridge and keep it
Speaker 1: on hand or something like this. It's a good way
Speaker 1: to not waste protect So thank you, thank you, thank
Speaker 1: you for joining us for this kick off to season
Speaker 1: two of Criminalia. We are so excited. There will be
Speaker 1: so many more stalkers to come uh and we will
Speaker 1: see you next week right here. Criminalia is a production
Speaker 1: of Shonda land Audio in partnership with I heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from Shonda land Audio, please visit the
Speaker 1: I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.