The University of Virginia, Alma Mater of Edgar Allan Poe during his brief stint at university, celebrates the author’s 200th birthday by the acquisition and exhibition of a letter of personal correspondence between Poe and his New York publishers, Langley.

The correspondence is a letter of apology accompanying a request for the purchase of an article, which should elevate his situation of being ‘desperately pushed for money’. In the letter Poe writes;

“Will you be so kind enough to put the best possible interpretation upon my behaviour while in N-York? You must have conceived a queer idea of me — but the simple truth is that Wallace would insist upon the juleps, and I knew not what I was either doing or saying”,

referring to friend, poet and lawyer William Ross Wallace.

The University of Virginia purchased the letter from a private collector for an unknown sum. The University Library released the letter this week ahead of an exhibit opening this Saturday, March 7th, that highlights Poe’s enduring literary works, brief life and mysterious death at the age of 40.