Robin Camille Davis
  1. Home /
  2. Blog /
  3. Anecdote concerning Poe

Anecdote concerning Poe

November 06, 2009
Tags: droll, history

From pages 515-16 of The House of Harper, by Joseph Henry Harper, 1912:

I recall an anecdote which John Kendrick Bangs related to me in regard to Poe. He told me that late one evening on their way home from a club dinner, his father, Francis N. Bangs, the brilliant lawyer, who was for years our legal adviser and friend, and my cousin, "Joe Brooklyn," saw a man clinging to a lamp-post. His hat had rolled into the street, and Francis Bangs politely picked it up and handed it to the limp gentleman, who thanked him profusely, and said that they might probably like to know the name of the man indebted to them for so much courtesy, and he then solemnly introduced himself as Mr. Edgar Allan Poe. Bangs replied that it was a curious coincidence, as his name was Tay and his friend's Toe. Poe immediately observed that they were well met, for together they made a potato, and, bowing very low, continued his uncertain perambulations.