SOURCE: "Edgar Allan Poe," in The South in American Literature: 1607-1900, Duke University Press, 1954, pp. 528-50.

In the following excerpt, Hubbell examines Poe's career as the book reviewer for the Southern Literary Messenger.

An Excerpt from Poe's Letter to Mr. B—(1831):

It has been said that a good critique on a poem may be written by one who is no poet himself. This, according to your idea and mine of poetry, I feel to be false—the less poetical the critic, the less just the critique, and the converse. On this account, and because there are but few B—s in the world, I would be as much ashamed of the world's good opinion as proud of your own. Another than yourself might here observe, "Shakespeare is in possession of the world's good opinion, and yet Shakespeare is the greatest of poets. It appears then that as the...