On April 20, 1849, Poe submitted For Annie to Nathaniel P. Willis, co-editor of the New York Home Journal. In his letter, Poe reminded Willis of other poems he had published in the Home Journal, including The Raven, and Willis, evidently unconcerned at the poem's previous publication in the Boston Weekly that same month, accepted it. Included in the margins of the manuscript are handwritten instructions by Willis to the printer regarding its presentation: "Will Mr. Babcock please put this on the second page this week, & leave me twenty lines room for an introduction N.P.W." He also inserted the poet's name at the top right: "by Edgar A. Poe."
The Poe manuscript is part of the Library of Dr. Rodney P. Swantko, a significant collection of modern literature which will appear in the auction and features works by Charles Dickens, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain, Vladimir Nabokov, John Steinbeck, and Walt Whitman. Highlights include Arthur Conan Doyle's autograph manuscript of the Sherlock Holmes tale The Sign of Four (1889) which has an estimate of $800,000 - $1.2 million.
$600,000 Estimate for Edgar Allan Poe's Autograph Manuscript For Annie at Auction
The For Annie manuscript
Written by Edgar Allan Poe in 1849, an autograph manuscript version of his For Annie goes under the hammer at Sotheby's on June 26 with an estimate of $400,000 - $600,000.
The poem is one of Poe's important late compositions, written for Nancy 'Annie' L. Richmond in the wake of the tragic death of his wife Virginia in 1847 from tuberculosis. It was written at the Poe Cottage in the Bronx where the writer lived with wife Virginia and mother-in-law Maria Clemm from 1846 until his death in 1849.
Following Virginia’s death, Poe grew increasingly instable and would soon begin courting several women in an attempt to fill the void left by his wife. Among them was Richmond, to whom this poem is addressed. Composed in the early spring of 1849, the speaker recounts his death from the “fever of called living,” and addresses a woman, Annie, who tenderly cares for and kisses him as he prepares for death.
Composed only months before Poe's death, the poem is eerily prophetic in its portrayal of a death-obsessed man seeking a love to help ease and guide him through the process of death.
The Cottage located in the Bronx, today preserved and overseen by the Bronx County Historical Society, was where Poe wrote many of his most famous works, including Annabel Lee, The Bells, and Eureka. Poe himself declared that For Annie was among his finest work in a letter to Richmond herself: "I think the lines For Annie much the best I have ever written..."
